By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
Imagine a father who cannot provide one un-square meal a day for his unemployed wife and three young children, a father who is finding it extremely difficult to pay his house rent and children’s school fees, and one whose bank account has always been reddish-ly red telling his wife that they need to have five more children and that she should start looking out for a US$10,500 annual-rent mansion for them to move in.
Such a father could aptly be described as a demented idealist who is being trapped in a phantasmagorical web! And the tragedy will become more tragic if such a man ensnares himself in a net of fantasized fantasy, coupled with political stupidities wrapped in tribal bigotries. And if such a father turns out to be a henpecked one, with an off-the-rail wife, then he is a potential wreck waiting to be wrecked when the fog he is hiding in clears.
Whenever President Julius Maada Bio conjures up one of his fantasized fantasies in any of his now seemingly trademarked uninspiring speeches; the first mental picture that comes to my mind is that of Willy Loman, the protagonist in Arthur Miller’s play: “Death of a Salesman”. Unlike Loman who seems to have moments of realistic approaches to his current situations; President Bio always appears to be constantly struggling between chronic illusions and diluted illusions! An example of such was when he told “the Sixth Parliament of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone”, on Thursday 7 August 2025, that: “We [he and his government] have strengthened our healthcare system — building hospitals, training doctors, and expanding services to every district….” I will be very much constrained to say that he is either being hyper-economical with the realities in every district of Sierra Leone or that he seems ignorant of the realities outside State Lodge. But residents in Kailahun, Falaba, or even in his home district of Bonthe, who have to come to the capital Freetown regularly to access some basic medical services, will take that statement with a pinch of salt!
And that pinch of salt will also be pinched where he asserted that, “Good governance begins with a public service that truly serves the people—one that is efficient, fair, and accountable”. This is another classic example of one of President Bio’s chronic illusions when one juxtaposes such an assertion with how the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) appears to be weaponizing every institution of good governance in Sierra Leone with what seems to be tribal and regional colourations! Apart from most of those who share the same “work ethics” with him who, incidentally, appear to be his tribesmen (and tribeswomen); you and I know that the current “public service” under the Bio-led administration is not truly serving the people but seems to be only serving a particular group of people (If anyone wants to dispute this factual fact let them do an Excel Spreadsheet of all current Presidential Appointments and juxtapose them with their regions of origin.). So, as a result, it will be delusional to even think that a “tribalized” public service will be remotely “efficient, fair, and accountable”.
And for President Bio to say, in the same breath, that, “A Government can only deliver when its institutions are strong, trusted, and focused on results” [still quoting from his parliamentary address of Thursday 7 August 2025], could be described as one of the greatest tongue-in-cheek comments in the evolution of the English language (Even William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, two of England’s greatest contributors—in my opinion—to the progression of the English language would not have pulled off such a paradoxical sarcasm.)! This is one of his diluted illusions simply because, deep down his heart of hearts, President Bio knows that his government appears to be deliberately weakening almost all public institutions in the country as his appointees seem to be more focused on maintaining a seemingly tribal hegemony than on results, which has led to majority of those Sierra Leoneans who do not share his “work ethics” to trust the forked-tongue creature more than his administration!
And just imagine that for over a year now all Local Councils in Sierra Leone have not received any subvention from the Government of Sierra Leone; yet the Bio-led administration has approved the creation of two new districts, Bandajuma and Panguma, and they also intend splitting Freetown into two cities, and Lungi Township to be given a city status. The stupidity in such a stupid proposal is being highlighted by Freetown’s Mayor, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, in a letter dated 3 June 2025 to the Minister of Local Government and Community Affairs in which she warns that such a Paopa-ian daydream would hurt “service delivery” and “place undue strain on government finances”.
And that “undue strain on government finances”, even before the Bio-led administration begins its stupid proposal, has also been highlighted by the Chairman of the Bombali District Council, Dr Mohamed M.B. Sisay, in a recent “Open Memo” to the Financial Secretary. In it, he states that, “For over a year, devolved sectors under our jurisdiction have not received any financial support. This has significantly hindered service delivery in key areas such as health, education, agriculture, and social welfare—sectors that directly affect the well-being of our communities”.
Yet, whilst President Bio was busy telling Members of Parliament on Thursday 7 August 2025 that his SLPP government had done extremely well on the health, education, agriculture, and social welfare sectors; the Local Councils are now cunningly telling us that our Commander-in-Chief might be speaking with his tongue in his cheek. They might be, subtly, telling us that creating more Districts and Cities when you are finding it extremely difficult to maintain and finance existing ones could be described as an act of fantasized fantasy by a delusional mind—the same state of mind which Willy Loman, in Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman”, is always in!
I think what President Bio needs, in my humble opinion, are small doses of pragmatic common senses in the manner in which he goes about administering Sierra Leone. He cannot have a shoe-string budget and be creating more Ministries, Commissions, Agencies, Departments, and also be making appointments that beat simple logic and commonsense. And he appears to be putting up the same behaviour like the imaginary father introduced in the intro of this One Dropian dropping!
I have given up on him, finally. But, in the first place, have I ever expected much from him?
medsankoh@yahoo.com/+232-76-611-986